BLING 



AN ACCOUNT OF THE CEREMONIES 

AT THE UNVEILING OF A 

MONUMENT TO HIS 

MEMORY. 



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in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



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I 



The Roebling Monument. 



The monument has a total height of 15 feet, 7 
inches. This is exclusive of the concrete base, 
which is built 4 feet, 6 inches, underground. The 
stonework supporting the statue is 9 feet high and 
the statue measures 6 feet, 7 inches. The figure 
is modeled in a sitting position. Had it been cast 
in a standing posture, it would have reached a 
height of exactly 8 feet. The statue is made of 
bronze and was cast in the plant of the Gorham 
Manufacturing Company in Providence, R. I. 
The cast was made from a clay model designed 
by William Couper, the sculptor, in his studio, 
207 East Seventeenth street, New York city. The 
pedestal is built of red Swedish granite. 

On the right side of this granite pedestal is a 
bronze panel containing a reproduction in relief of 
the first railroad suspension bridge built over the 
Niagara. On the left side is another panel con- 
taining a replica, also in relief, of the Brooklyn 
Bridge, designed by Mr. Roebling. 



John A. Roebling 



AN ACCOUNT OF THE CEREMONIES 

AT THE UNVEILING OF A 

MONUMENT TO HIS 

MEMORY. 



IRoebling fl>re00 

1908 






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INTRODUCTION. 



While many monuments have been ere< ted in honor of 
those who have achieved distinction in statecraft, who have 
led victorious armies upon hard fought battlefields, or who 
by the exercise of exceptional literary gifts have appealed 
to world wide sympathies and all'-' tions, the S< ulptor's art- 
has been seldom employed to commemorate the virtue-, of 
men whose lives were spent in v lentil)' and induM.rial 
pursuits. 

It has been said that a great engineer dealing with mate- 
rial things, and bending them to his will, leaves behind him 
monuments in the works built upon his designs. This is 
true, but while an imposing structure may give eviden* < of 
the genius of the builder, it suggests buf little of the man 
Inmself, and it is therefore proper that those who deem 
him worthy, should give expression in material form to the 
esteem in which they hold his memory. 

To the small number of monuments erected m honor of 
eminent engineers, there has recently been added, a! 1 fen 
ton, N. J., a statue of John A. Roebling. Mr. Roebling 
was not a native of Trenton, nor of the country in which 
the greater part of his life was spent. Yet so important 
was his work and so strong the impression left by his per- 
sonality, it is not strange thai the people of his adopted < ity 
desired to place in their principal park, a statue portraying 
the man as he looked in the prime of his active life. 

A committee of citizens took the matter in hand and 
solicited popular subscriptions which resulted in contribu- 
tions from a large number of the people of Trenton, who 
had either known Mr. Roebling or appreciated the bene- 
fit of his service-, to their com m unity. 



The monument was designed by Mr. William Couper, 
of New York, under whose direction there was produced a 
striking likeness of the great engineer. It was unveiled on 
June 30th, 1908, in the presence of over 15,000 people, 
among whom were the Governor of New Jersey, the repre- 
sentatives of the State in the United States Senate and a 
number of other distinguished guests. 

Throughout the city of Trenton there was a general dis- 
play of flags, the occasion being officially recognized, locally, 
by the closing of the City Hall and Court House at noon and 
the attendance of the City and County officials in a body. 

The City of Miilhausen, Germany, the birthplace of 
Mr. Roebling, sent an artistic copper wreath as its tribute 
to his memory. 

Notable features of the dedication ceremonies were a 
concert by Winkler's Second Regiment Band, singing by 
the United German Singing Societies of Trenton under 
the direction of Dr. Carl Hoffman, and addresses by Hon. 
Edward C. Stokes, former Governor of New Jersey, and 
Mr. Henry D. Estabrook, of New York, General Counsel 
for the Western Union Telegraph Company. 

Prior to the unveiling of the monument, 6500 men, 
employees of the industry founded by John A. Roebling, 
and since his death conducted by his sons, marched from 
the works, through the streets of Trenton to Cadwalader 
Park. It is interesting to note in this connection that in 
the year 1908 occurs the sixtieth anniversary of the removal 
by Mr. Roebling of his plant to Trenton from Saxonburg, 
Pa., where eight years before he had begun the manufac- 
ture of wire rope. 

Mr. Roebling was the first to make wire rope in this 
country, and, as the market developed, he found that it 
could not be conveniently supplied from the location of the 



original factory. It was, therefore, decided to move to 
Trenton, where preparations were made to manufacture 
wire rope in larger quantities than could be produced with 
the limited facilities employed at Saxonburg. As an aid to 
this, there was soon added to the rope shop a mill for draw- 
ing wire, from which wire was supplied to the trade as well 
as for stranding into rope. 

Wire has been made from bars of metal for many cen- 
turies, but sixty years ago it was far from being the 
important product it has since become, and there was then 
little to indicate the many uses to which in a few years it 
would be applied. Mr. Roebling, by his work at Saxon- 
burg had shown the merit of wire cables, but their use was 
still confined within comparatively narrow limits, and there 
was nothing to correspond with the present demand for 
wire for mechanical purposes. 

When the factory was built at Trenton, there were no 
elevators raised and lowered by wire ropes in lofty buildings, 
and modern methods of mining, quarrying and lumbering, 
depending upon the operation of wire cables were unknown. 
The telegraph was in use, but a few miles of wire were 
sufficient to carry the occasional messages for which the 
mails were thought too slow, and years were yet to pass 
before wire cables should lie upon the ocean's bed, flashing 
the news of widely separated continents. No human voice 
had ever sent its vibrations across miles of space, and the 
millions of pounds of metal now annually transformed into 
threads of wire to transmit electrical energy then lay buried 
in unsought, undiscovered mines. 

The latter half of the nineteenth century was destined 
to be marked by a rapid development of the resources of 
the country, and by a progress in mechanical arts greater 
than the world had ever known before. 



This development and progress called for the exercise 
with ever broadening scope of the talents of the inventor 
and engineer, and such talents, combined with the judge- 
ment of a practical business man, were possessed in a high 
degree by the wire rope maker of Trenton. 

He was not the only manufacturer of his time who had 
added to the capacity of his factory. Old manufacturing 
establishments were being enlarged ; new ones were spring- 
ing into existence, and with the growth of the manufac- 
turing industry there came a demand for an increased 
supply of fuel, and the need of improved methods 
of mining and transportation. 

Rich veins of coal were located in the mountains, the 
strata running far above the valley roads. The demand for 
additional fuel could be supplied by the development of 
these mines, but the transportation of coal to convenient 
shipping points presented a difficult problem for solution. 
This Mr. Roebling helped to solve, by equipping with wire 
rope inclined planes, extending along the mountain side from 
the opening of the mine to the valley below. 

As an aid in building suspension bridges, he designed 
endless wire rope cableways, which, continuously moving 
upon wheels located at each end of a bridge span, carried 
across wires to form the supporting cables. It was a short 
step from these to cableways, spanning ravines and moun- 
tain gorges, carrying coal and other minerals where old 
methods of transportation would have been impracticable. 

Each successful application of his product enhanced the 
reputation of the wire rope manufacturer and increased the 
demand for his services. 

The year following his settlement at Trenton, gold was 
discovered in California, awakening the country to an 
appreciation of the possibilities of the West, and providing 



an incentive for the investment of capital in the extension 
of Eastern railways. But rivers must be spanned to carry 
their rails, and transportation companies, operating lines of 
steamboats upon important waterways, bitterly opposed 
plans to build railroad bridges with piers threatening to ob- 
struct navigation. 

If the Niagara river could be bridged there would be no 
conflict with steamship lines, but the natural conditions 
which prevented navigation made impracticable the con- 
struction of piers in the stream. Prominent engineers who 
inspected the site expressed the opinion that a bridge could 
not be built, and it seemed as though the railway must halt 
in its course toward the West. 

The one man of the time to present a solution of the 
problem was the pioneer wire rope manufacturer, whose 
designs of suspension bridges had been met with ridicule 
and opposition. 

By force of argument and logic of mathematical demon- 
stration, he gained converts to his belief that he could safe- 
ly extend the railway across Niagara. His design was finally 
adopted, and on March 16, 1855, a span, 800 feet in length, 
carried by wire cables 245 feet above the whirlpool rapids, 
supported the first railroad train to cross a suspension bridge. 

The following year witnessed the beginning of a span 
200 feet longer than that at Niagara, to cross the Ohio 
river at Cincinnati, and then Mr. Roebling proposed what 
was to be the crowning achievement of his career, a plan 
to connect the cities of New York and Brooklyn by a bridge 
with a river span of 1600 feet, supported by cables, placed 
high enough above the water to enable ships with their 
towering masts to sail beneath. This project was advanced 
in the fifties, but it was not until ten years later that the 
plan was adopted. 



The designer of the Brooklyn bridge did not live to see 
its completion, losing his life July 22nd, 1869, as the result 
of an accident at the very inception of the work. The bridge, 
completed under the direction of his son, Washington, was 
opened for traffic in 1883 and has been continuously in use 
ever since. 

John A. Roebling came to America a stranger to its life 
and customs, without influential friends and with little 
capital other than character, energy, and courage. He be- 
gan the manufacture of an unknown article, for which he 
created a market, aiding in so doing the development 
of the nation's resources and laying the foundation of one of 
the world's great industries. He met a condition arising 
from the growth of his adopted country, by proposing to 
carry new highways across rivers upon bridges, the like of 
which had not been known before. 

There arose about him a chorus of protest, voiced by 
engineers more eminent than he, who denounced his plan as 
visionary and impracticable. With courage undaunted, a 
persistence not to be repelled, he insisted that he had dis- 
covered a principle of mechanics worthy of acceptance and 
silenced his critics by building those great bridges which 
stand as beautiful and imposing monuments to his memory. 

To these monuments there has been added the statue 
erected at Trenton, the tribute of the people of the city 
where he lived and wrought so well. 

The following pages contain the programme of the cere- 
monies at the dedication of the monument, the speakers' 
addresses, biographical sketches of the memorial committee 
and comments of the press upon the occasion. 

Alfred N. Barber. 



Programme 



Programme of Exercises. 



MUSIC — "American Overture," . Winkler's Band 

INVOCATION, . . Rev. W. Strother Jones 

»<™ ^ j t-t » j United Singing Societies 

Der Tag des Herrn, . j of Trenton 

Under Direction of Dr. Carl Hoffmann 

Unveiling of Statue, by Miss Emily M. Roebling 

MUSIC— Bridal Chorus, ) _ _ Winkler's Band 

from Lohengrin, ) 

Introduction of Orator, Hon. E. C. Stokes 

ADDRESS, ... Mr. Henry D. Estabrook 

.. „ ( United Singing Societies 

Star Spangled Banner, . j of Trenton 

Under Direction of Dr. Carl Hoffmann 

Introduction of Sculptor, \ H j H Blackwell 
Mr. William Couper, > J 

MUSIC — Coronation March, ) Winkler's Band 

from "The Prophet," ) 



Addresses 



Address of Hon. E. C. Stokes. 



CHIS scene reminds us that posterity is not forgetful; 
it ever recalls the greatness of its ancestors. We 
have our Fourth of July, our Memorial Day, our 
commemorations of Washington, Lincoln and Grant. Sel- 
dom does posterity neglect the hero or pioneer, the dis- 
coverer or benefactor. In poetry or song, in marble or 
bronze, it hands down to coming generations the memory 
of great achievements and beneficient services. 

Almost every city of importance has its monument com- 
memorative of some genius whose enduring works awake 
the grateful acknowledgement of his fellows. Genoa has 
its statue of Columbus — a son whose discoveries brought 
fame to his birth place ; Stratford has its statue of Shakes- 
peare, that makes it a Mecca for the literary pilgrim ; Phila- 
delphia has its statue of Franklin, its great inventor and 
scientist ; Essen has its statue of Krupp, whose industrial 
genius has encircled the world. 

We are no exception to this happy custom. After 
thirty-nine years, we gather to unveil a statue to John A. 
Roebling, one of Trenton's sons whose creative genius still 
speaks in the industrial world and through the great enter- 
prise he founded — developed and enlarged under the 
management of his sons — still continues to add to the 
growth and prosperity of our city. 



16 

It has been well said that the world and its affairs are 
administered by men of action rather than by philosophers 
and dreamers. The marvelous achievements of this day 
and generation are the result of efforts of the great captains 
of industry — of men whose practical minds can see a com- 
pleted work even before it is started ; a trans-continental 
railroad before the first spike is driven; an Erie Canal be- 
fore a spade is handled ; a submarine cable joining two 
continents before the Great Eastern is built ; a Brooklyn 
bridge before the first cable is swung. 

It is in these lines that the greatest progress has been 
made, the greatest benefits conferred upon mankind. New 
methods of traffic and communication have enabled us to 
utilize the fields, the forests, the mines, and to furnish 
profitable employment to millions. The life of John A. 
Roebling contributed to these ends. He was the first to 
conceive the idea of a long span suspension bridge, and 
with masterly courage he executed it, practically in the face 
of predictions of failure on the part of the leading en- 
gineers of the day. 

He surveyed and located the line to Pittsburgh, from 
Harrisburg across the Alleghanies. He designed new forms 
of aqueducts to carry the waters of canals over chasms and 
shallow streams. He saw the necessity of a substitute for 
the bulky and heavy ropes used to draw canal boats up long 
elevations, and his fertile mind devised machinery for the 
making of wire rope, of which he was the first manufac- 
turer in this country, and which was the foundation of the 
great Roebling works. 

With the daring of the pioneer he blazed new pathways 
and created new enterprises and industries, which furnished 
employment to thousands. He broke down nature's barriers, 
bridged impassable rivers and mighty chasms, and made 



17 



easy communication and trade between great and growing 
populations. 

When one pictures the closer relations and the increased 
commerce between different sections ; the riches and com- 
forts and blessings that followed in the pathway of this 
pioneer, it would seem that his countryman, Schiller, had 
him in mind when he said : 

" The toil of science swells the wealth of art." 

America is a cosmopolitan country, and the typical 
American has in his veins the blood of all nations. He is 
the evolved product of hundreds and thousands who have 
come hither from abroad, found homes upon our hospitable 
shores, and, adapting themselves to the genius of our insti- 
tutions, have become part of the warp and woof of our 
nation's life. This republic owes much to the sons of the 
fatherland who have settled upon our soil and been loyal to 
our institutions. 

No race has been more reliable, more consistent for the 
principles of conservatism and common honesty and right, 
more steadfast in their devotion to the principles of our 
government, than the Germans who have made this their 
home. 

Mr. Roebling was one of these and he loved his adopted 
country and was proud to become an American citizen. 
In the early days of the Civil War he evinced his patriotism 
and loyalty by proposing and subscribing to a fund to arm 
and equip volunteers to defend the flag. He believed in his 
republic, and he was willing to make sacrifices in service or 
money to save it from destruction. 

In a sense no monument is needed to preserve the 
memory or fame of this patriotic citizen and epoch-making 
manufacturer and engineer. His works are his monuments. 
2 



18 



In the East the memorial of his genius links together 
the divided sections of the metropolis of our country 
and looks down upon the commerce of the world. In 
the North it spans Niagara's mighty cataracts and 
makes a pathway between two nations. In the West, 
his early home, the waters of the Ohio and other streams 
are crossed by suspended highways fashioned by his talent 
and skill. So long as these shall stand or the principle of 
their construction be observed, his fame is secure. 

This monument is raised not more to him than to our- 
selves — a sign to all the world that knows his works, that 
here he lived. It is the embodiment of civic pride and 
filial affection, and our citizens and the sons of John A. 
Roebling have done honor to themselves in honoring the 
benefactor and father. Fortunate that he should leave be- 
hind those who could carry on the work and enterprises he 
conceived. Great men do not always live to see the 
accomplishment of their mission. 

Moses never entered the promised land; but the children 
of Israel went on to Canaan. Reynolds fell at Gettysburg 
before the decisive hour ; but the battle continued and 
Gettysbury was won. Lincoln died ; but the Union he 
loved went on to greater glories. 

John A. Roebling never saw or realized his conception 
of the aerial structure that arches the East river, but a loving 
and able son carried on and successfully completed this 
project of his inventive mind. 

The enterprise which he left with a hundred employes 
has since marshalled a host of eight thousand. 

Fitting it is that his monument should be placed in this 
community. Here let it stand to tell the story of a great 
intellectual and practical engineer; of a scientific manufac- 



19 

turer who revolutionized conditions and who brought honor 
and reputation and prosperity to his adopted city. 

The work of this committee of citizens who conceived 
this monument — and whose worthy efforts to-day crowns 
with success, has attracted attention throughout our country 
and even across the seas ; because the subject of their 
memorial is measured by no local limitations, but is of 
national and international fame. The committee's work is 
done ; they have rendered our community a great service 
and deserve the thanks of the public, and their greatest 
reward is the success of their efforts in the consummation 
of this day. As they lay aside their duties, on their behalf, 
I present this statue to the city — a tribute to their patriotic 
efforts and a lasting reminder of the achievements of an 
honored citizen of Trenton. 

Here it rests, a companion to yonder monument of 
Washington. Both of these subjects were engineers ; one 
journeyed with Braddock to Fort Duquesne, when the 
Alleghany and the Monangahela flowed through a wilder- 
ness ; the other settled near the same spot at a time when 
it was almost the western frontier of the active civilization 
of the Republic and helped to open it to traffic and com- 
munication. 

The one made Trenton historic on the field of battle ; 
the other made it historic in the field of industry. One 
triumphed here in war and laid the foundations of national 
independence ; the other triumphed here in peace and laid 
the foundations of a new and abiding prosperity. 

These two monuments typify each its particular phase 
of American life ; each parallels and complements the 
other; each is a memorial of achievements wrought and 
an inspiration to glories yet to be. 



20 

John A. Roebling filled such an important place in 
American progress that the lessons of his life are needed 
by posterity. It is proper that his career should be re- 
viewed and its incidents told on this occasion. It is a 
great subject with which we have to deal. 

We are fortunate in having as the orator of this occasion 
one whose connections with the family of Mr. Roebling 
are sufficiently close to enable him to be familiar with the 
incidents of his life, and sufficiently removed to make him 
an unprejudiced and faithful biographer. 

I take pleasure in presenting as the orator of the day, 
Mr. Henry D. Estabrook, of New York city. 



Address of 
Mr. Henry D. Estabrook. 



'HOSE who knew him best affirm that the statue of 
John Augustus Roebling, which you, the citizens 
of Trenton, have here and now erected to his 
memory, is a true and faithful likeness. But it is more. 
Through some Promethian fire that flames once in a life- 
time in the heart of genius, the sculptor has ' in this rough 
work shaped out a man." 

In "The Winter's Tale," Leontes asks, "What fine 
chisel could ever yet cut breath?" But does not this image 
breathe ? Look ! It exhales a personality, and he whose 
plastic skill evoked the miracle might well stand in my 
place and say to you — in the very words of Shakespeare : 

" If you can behold it, 
I'll make the statue move indeed, descend 
And take you by the hand." 

I am expected by those having these ceremonies in 
charge to translate into words what the sculptor has so 
admirably expressed in bronze, namely, the type and 
quality, the idiosyncrasy of your famous townsman. But 
words are all too plastic for such a task. As if his nature 
had been subdued to what it worked in, the Iron Master 
of Trenton was a man of iron. Iron was in his blood, and 
sometimes entered his very soul ; a man of iron, with the 
virtues of iron and the peccancies of iron to his account, 



22 

and John A. Roebling as he was, as you knew him, head 
bared to the blows of fortune or the storms of heaven, eyes 
fixed unwaveringly on whatever object he had in hand ; 
poised, confident, unyielding, imperious and proud, John A. 
Roebling is there — seated forever on yonder pedestal. 

Fellow-citizens, the unveiling of a statue is the unveiling 
of a mystery. It is the revelation of a life, the denoue- 
ment of a career. A statue is an apparition — an apparition 
that lingers, a ghost transfixed, immutable thought uttered 
in brazen metaphor. 

And yet, even a bronze statue, with its solemn fixity of 
meaning, must have been prefigured in the genial clay — soft 
and plasmic, shaped by a touch, yielding to a finger tip. 
So the character it portrays, however obdurate, begins in 
protoplasm ; and the matrix of circumstance, in which all of 
us are molded — do we fashion it ourselves, as the grub 
fashions its cocoon, or is there a Sculptor — a Divinity that 
shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will ? The old 
adage declares that man proposes and God disposes ; 
or, as the Bible puts it, "A man's heart deviseth his way; 
but the Lord directeth his steps." Meaning that every 
man may realize himself as the Almighty made him, which 
is a spiritual fulfillment ; or he may make himself, after 
a pattern of his own invention, and live deluded — a som- 
nambulist — till the great awakening. Never believe that 
man is simply the creature of circumstance, the sport of 
chance, the passive issue of his heredity or environment. 
These may be hindrances or helps according as they are 
used, but the agency, the power to conquer, is the man as 
God made him. Eveiy hour every day is time enough, 
every place everywhere is opportunity enough for a man to 
be what he ought to be, and unless he is, and regardless of 
his accomplishment, he will miss the joy of living — the joy 



23 

which is not in mind alone, nor in heart alone, but in that 
commingling of mind and heart, justice and mercy, that 
sanctions and sanctifies accomplishment. 

These comments are not unrelated to the life of John 
A. Roebling, but are rather suggested by it. His biography, 
written by the eldest son, is yet in manuscript and may 
never be published ; but it is one of the most remarkable 
books I ever read. It is remarkable for its genuine litera- 
ture, which is Arcadian and original ; remarkable for its 
naive philosophy, a trifle bilious, may be, but honest and 
unlacquered ; remarkable for its analysis of men and events 
and for an acidulous humor that is almost styptic ; but 
chiefly is it remarkable for the frank revealment of the in- 
time vitae, the qualities and inequalities of the extraor- 
dinary man who was his father. Unconsciously to himself, 
perhaps, the biographer has given us a study in evolution, 
with the factors of heredity, environment, the struggle for 
existence, and all the rest of it, plus a psychic something 
that Darwinism might consider negligible. 

John Augustus Roebling was born June, 1806, in 
Miilhausen, Germany, and the State of Thiiringen. Miil- 
hausen is an old walled town founded in the year 800. 
The wall was really built to keep people out, though why 
anybody should want to get into Miilhausen is matter of 
wonderment after reading a description of it. You could 
easier surmise that the wall was to prevent escape, just as 
prisoners are immured to insure their whereabouts. Miil- 
hausen — in the words of Tennyson — is 

" A sleepy town, where under the same wheel 
" The same old rut is deepened year by year." 

As for Thiiringen, it is one of the poorest of the Ger- 
man States. The land is high and stony and cold. A yield 



24 

of fifteen bushels of wheat to the acre is exceptional, and 
the other crops are quite as scanty. It was only by hard 
work and frugality to the utmost of self-denial that the 
people were able to eke out an existence. In those days 
there were no factories in Miilhausen, the mechanics and 
artisans doing their work in their own little houses, the whole 
family assisting, the women working quite as hard as the 
men. For more than a thousand years there had been 
hard work in Miilhausen but no enterprise whatever, and 
work without enterprise is a kind of catalepsy. Life was 
stereotyped, society stratified. 

To a man like Polycarp Roebling, father of John Roeb- 
ling, the prescriptive life of this old German village was 
by no means irksome. He kept a tobacco shop and man- 
aged to smoke as much tobacco as he sold. Smoking in 
Germany, you know, is a solace, whereas in America it is 
an employment. To the German smoke is a nimbus and 
begets reverie and an introspective philosophy. 

So Polycarp Roebling loved Miilhausen and lived and 
died there, in spite of his son's efforts to lure him to 
America. His sainted namesake had been burned at the 
stake for cherishing certain opinions. Nothing of this kind 
was likely to happen in Miilhausen, but no telling what 
the wild Indians might do in Pennsylvania or New Jersey, 
and Polycarp Roebling held opinions on a variety of sub- 
jects for which he was willing to smoke but by no means 
willing to burn. Moreover, he was accustomed to Miil- 
hausen beer. It was not possible that beer like this could 
be found in all the world, and what was there in America 
to compensate for such a loss ? It was also true that sur- 
prising things were happening in the United States. 
Nothing ever happened in Miilhausen, and a surprise of 
any kind was as disturbing to the old gentleman as a poke 



25 



in the ribs ; it was a species of impertinence. The grand- 
son assures us that under no circumstances would his 
grandfather open a letter on the same day it was received, 
for no particular reason unless it were to tease the curiosity 
of his wife, whose temperament was of quite another sort. 
Yes, the mother differed greatly from the father in 
character and disposition, and John A. Roebling was the 
son of his mother. To her Miilhausen was a pent-up 
Utica. She was a woman of tremendous activity, mental 
and physical. Deep in her soul she nourished ambitions 
which became tragedies through very hopelessness. The 
fate of Tantalus was cruel but not unmitigated, for he at 
least saw something towards which to struggle ; had she 
been Tantalus mythology might be different. But to skin 
a flint, to milk a he-goat into a sieve, as the saying is — 
that is what life in Miilhausen meant to the mother of 
John Roebling. And yet, weary as she was of much doing 
and no performance she did not whimper for sympathy. 
She worked for the sake of work, for the blessedness of 
drudgery, and confronted her disappointments with a stern 
and Spartan courage. She had borne four children, three 
sons and a daughter, but it was not until her youngest 
child, John, had displayed mental qualities to distinguish 
him even in the eyes of strangers that there dawned upon 
her the full significance of motherhood — its doom, its glory, 
its sacrifice, its triumph. Thenceforth ambition had but 
one goal, life but one object — the education of her boy; 
through him she would achieve, through him she would 
fulfil her destiny. Work was redoubled — it had become a 
sacrament. Economies were multiplied — they had become 
a rosary, for every pfennig saved was a prayer answered. 
The members of her family were incited to ceaseless effort 
while she, the mother, brooded and safeguarded the fruits 



26 

of that effort. Her executive faculties developed with 
their exercise and she managed everything and everybody. 

Thus it was that John Roebling was enabled to graduate 
from the Royal University of Berlin after a course at the 
Pedagogium of Erfurt, and thus it was that when, shortly 
thereafter, he sailed for America, he carried with him a 
patrimony large enough to insure his establishment. 

His austere mother, who had been regnant and supreme 
in her household — whom an artist would picture as a 
caryatid holding up the House of Roebling — this heroic 
mother, I say, accompanied her beloved son to the port of 
embarkation and bade him farewell, without a quiver of 
the lips or the shedding of a tear. It was an eternal fare- 
well, for almost in the act of waving her adieux she was 
seized with a mortal malady and died — died before her 
son, who was destined to play so conspicuous a part in the 
commercial life of America, and for whom her own life 
had been one long travail, had set foot in the promised 
land. Her work was done. She had met her destiny. 
There was in this self-immolation the fervor and the pride 
of accomplishment, to be sure, but was there the happi- 
ness of fulfillment? Alas for the offices of love without 
the tenderness, the loveliness of love ! Alas for the cark 
and care of maternity without the charm and witchery of 
motherhood! Alas for the cradle without a lullaby ! There 
is a deafening silence in our ears when the heartstrings vi- 
brate without a sound ! 

At Dr. Unger's Pedagogium, in Erfurt, John Roebling 
had won the admiring friendship of the distinguished doc- 
tor, whose numerous books on mathematics are to-day part 
of the Roebling library. At the Royal University of Ber- 
lin he had studied architecture and engineering with Stiller 
and Rabe ; bridge construction with Dietleyn ; hydraulics 



27 

with Eytelwein ; languages in regular course and philos- 
ophy under the great Hegel, who openly avowed that John 
Roebling was his favorite pupil. 

The last statement is important, and I repeat it. John 
Roebling was the favorite pupil of the immortal Hegel. 

You realize, of course, that the function of a teacher is 
feminine. When a school boy speaks of " alma mater " 
he is not thinking of his rhetoric. "Alma mater " is always 
enciente, and her children wax or wane on what she feeds 
to them, whether it be pap or pabulum. And John A. 
Roebling was the favorite pupil of Hegel — a colossal dry- 
nurse ! 

Hegel is one of the epoch-makers of the world. In the 
realm of pure reason he ranks with Plato, Descartes, Spino- 
sa and Kant. It is impossible to study him diligently and 
not be profoundly influenced by his teachings, and for a 
youth like John Roebling to have been brought into inti- 
mate contact with his dominating personality was at once a 
privilege and a calamity. It was a privilege because it 
opened the boy's eyes to the spiritual reality back of the 
change and decay " of material phenomena, for Hegel 
was an idealist as truly as Berkeley or the Woman of Con- 
cord ; it was a privilege because he was taught to think 
independently and to rely upon the validity of his own con- 
clusions. It was a calamity because it begat a pride and 
arrogance of opinion and a frigid intellectuality that came 
near putting the heart of him into cold storage. And yet 
Truth never had a more honest advocate than Hegel ; 
there can be no impeachment of his integrity. His one 
purpose in life was to answer Job's question — " Canst thou 
by searching find out God?" And he found his God in 
the Universe itself, reduced to an Idea. His religion was a 
religion that reveals rather than is revealed. " Religion," 



28 

said he, " is man in the presence of God." A sublime 
definition if it does not lead to solipsism, which is another 
name for Hegelianism. God, Man, Religion, the Uni- 
verse — these were his themes, and, says a recent commen- 
tator, " We may safely say that no man ever handled such 
lofty themes in so consistently and coldly scientific a spirit. 
We never feel the beat of a heart in his writings — only the 
pulse of thought. A manual of the Differential Calculus 
will appear a warm and sentimental treatise when compared 
with the merciless pages in which Hegel anatomises the 
soul of man or the nature of the Blessed God. Nothing 
that he has said will, by the manner of his saying it, make 
any one the braver for reading it or the better for remem- 
bering it. The philosopher has almost if not altogether 
eaten out the man." And John Roebling was the favorite 
of this prodigy ! 

Fellow citizens, the peculiarities and even the infirmities 
of great men are significant, and it is perhaps wise to con- 
sider rather than to ignore them. Please note how this 
master was reflected in his pupil : 

Hegel was a metaphysician, so was John Roebling — 
metaphysics was his dissipation. The time others spent in 
amusements, the reading of polite literature or impolite 
newspapers, John Roebling devoted to metaphysics. His 
son and biographer has a manuscript volume of thousands 
of pages written by his father, called " Roebling's Theory 
of the Universe." I have not read this book — Heaven 
forfend that I should ever be asked to ! 

Hegel was an idealist ; so was John Roebling, who 
scouted the atomic theory. His son, Washington, had 
studied the chemistry of Dalton and attempted to combat 
his father's arguments ; " but," says he, " father would damn 
my atoms " — and with loud and angry vociferation. This 



29 

was hardly a pious way to resolve matter into spirit, but it 
was strictly Hegelian. 

Hegel was a wizard at dialectics — a priori reasoners 
usually are. His categories are so many pigeon holes for 
the classification of thoughts. Indeed, Hegel's Logic 
is a dictionary of thoughts instead of words. He loved to 
argufy " — and so did John Roebling. A sermon or ethical 
discourse that John Roebling once heard he could recall 
almost verbatim, and would amplify into an interminable 
harangue, with his children as a constrained but respectful 
audience. The fact that they did not understand in the 
least what he was talking about mattered not at all. He 
would talk at them by the hour, while the poor victims 
would blink in the illumination of his soliloquy like young 
owls in the sunshine. It seemed to them that their father 
was trying to define God as a Vacuum. But, as Carlyle 
says, "words are linear, character is solid," and even Hegel 
would admit that we live in a world of three dimensions. 

Hegel was no lover of nature ; to him art was every- 
thing. Like Sidney Smith's egotist, he would dare to 
speak disrespectfully of the equator. Hegel was never 
heard to exclaim upon the beauties of a landscape — neither 
was John Roebling. 

As a teacher Hegel differed utterly from the wise and 
gentle Frcebel. He contended that it was dangerous to 
make education pleasant to children, and that they ought 
to be broken in." To me this seems a harsh and ugly 
doctrine, but John Roebling took stock in it. His own 
pathway to knowledge had been strewn with more thorns 
than roses, but he knew what he knew, and, like the rest 
of us, possibly thought he knew a great deal more than he 
did. His student note books are preserved and prove that 
his work at the university had been desperate and unre- 



30 

mitting. Small wonder that, proudly satisfied with his own 
accomplishment, he should insist upon the same hard cur- 
riculum for his offspring. Poverty and ambition, twin 
spurs goading him to a poignancy of effort, had won him 
the race, and so it followed, in his logic, that youth must 
be stung and prodded into action. 

The laws of his household were Draconian, and 
prompt retribution followed their infraction. Even to be 
sick was culpable, just as being a common scold was form- 
erly a misdemeanor, and the dereliction was remedied by 
like means, to wit, the ducking stool ; though it is fair to 
say that when guilty himself of being sick John Roebling 
took his own medicine. I know not if it is a peculiarity of 
idealists, but those of you who have read Berkeley will re- 
call his addiction to tar-water. Tar-water was the lustral 
water par excellence, the grand catholicon for the cure of 
everything. What tar-water was to Bishop Berkeley, cold 
water was to John Roebling. Every book ever published 
on hydropathy John Roebling bought and studied, and 
applied its teachings according to his own notions — not 
with the cautious, tentative methods of a physician but in 
the large, generous, voluminous manner of an engineer. 
After all, what was hydropathy but a branch of hydraulics? 

Now, parental discipline is all right, coercion is all right, 
even castigation is all right if administered con amore, so 
to speak. But John Roebling sometimes punished in 
anger, which is not punishment but truculence. Is there 
a mother's son of us who has not often recalled with a 
grimace, half whimsical and wholly forgiving, the pendant 
whip, kept for terror rather than for use, and more re- 
spected by the ft harmless necessary cat " than by his grace- 
less boyhood ? Has he not in after years rallied his blessed 
mother on the set speech which always prefaced her 



31 

occasional application of that whip, to the effect that it 
hurt her more than it did him; which statement, however 
doubted then, he knows now to have been the fact? I 
fancy there are few such hallowed memories clustering 
about the twig of birch that decorated the home, and eke 
the prancing legs, of the Roebling youngsters. That 
birchen rod meant business ! It may be parental neglect 
or maudlin selfishness to spare the rod and spoil the child, 
but on the whole I had rather spare the child and spoil the 
rod ; I had rather span the gulf between life and death with 
the tender chords of memory of those for whose being I am 
responsible, than to bridge with steel cables the gorge of Ni- 
agara, the East River or the Atlantic Ocean. And if John 
Roebling could speak he would say Amen ! to this ; for 
with advancing years his rigorous notions underwent many 
displacements, Hegel himself being displaced by Emerson. 

But even so, I am sorry this faulty thread should be 
traced in the seamless shroud I would fain weave for so 
great a man. It is a defect exaggerated, perhaps, by that 
very greatness, like a pinch too much of carbon in a mass 
of metal. I emphasize it for two reasons ; because it 
illustrates a cardinal difference between the Old Testament 
and the New — between the old ideas and the new — 
between Hegel and Froebel, and to thank God that Froe- 
bel triumphed ! 

John Roebling set sail for America in the year 1831, 
and landed on our shores a young man of twenty-five, seem- 
ingly equipped for any battle that awaited him. He was a 
most accomplished gentleman. If a wiseacre had predicted 
his failure it would have been on the very ground that he 
was too accomplished, that his learning and talents were too 
various ever to focus in a particular vocation — especially 
the vocation of a farmer, which he had deliberately chosen. 



32 

He had no knowledge of the science of farming ; indeed, 
in his day farming scarcely ranked as a science, nor had he 
any practical experience in the work itself. Nevertheless, 
he had chosen to become a farmer. He had graduated 
from the greatest university in the world as an architect and 
engineer ; he was a scholar of wide reading ; he was a 
philosopher of the transcendental sort, whom an American 

hustler" would shy at as a dreamer; he was a musician of 
rare skill and temperament ; he was the master of three 
languages, German, French and English — but what had all 
this to do with farming? 

And yet he had chosen well, at least for the time being. 
In the first place his choice had led to a thorough study of 
American history and geography. His knowledge of the 
topography, climatic and political conditions, the advantages 
and disadvantages of the various States in our Union was 
as accurate as if he had personally visited every one of 
them. The reasons set forth in his diary for locating as he 
did are most convincing. In the next place, he forthwith 
invested all his money in desirable lands at cheap prices, 
thus preventing its dissipation in some visionary enterprise. 
And so owning good farm lands well located he had, from 
the very start, insured his living and his independence. 

The lands selected by him were in the western part of 
Pennsylvania, Butler county, about twenty-five miles from 
the new town of Pittsburg. Here he and a few of his com- 
patriots purchased some 7,000 acres at an average price of 
$1.37 an acre, and founded the village of Germania, after- 
wards called Saxonburg. It was a wild and isolated country 
with a future as blank as his own, where, as Cowper would 
say : 

" History, not wanted yet, 
Leaned on her elbow watching Time, whose course, 
Eventful, should supply her with a theme." 



I opper Wreath, seni by the city of 
Mulhausen, Germany, as the tribute of its 
citizen to the memory of [ohn A. Roel 



33 

I may as well admit that John Roebling never became a 
first class farmer. He made a living, to be sure, but it was 
a meagre living, and if by good luck he got a little money 
ahead he was sure to give it to some German emigrant in 
worse plight than himself. He even tried to supplement 
farming with other employments, such, for instance, as the 
breeding of canary birds. Fancy the engineer of Brooklyn 
bridge raising canary birds for the profit in it ! However, 
that peerless creation was not suggested by the wire cage of 
a canary, and he soon abandoned the enterprise as unpro- 
ductive — unproductive of money, I mean, for the birds 
themselves were scandalously productive, though the per- 
centage of singers was wholly disproportionate to the total 
output. His birds turned out to be mostly females that 
could not sing, or males that steadfastly refused to sing, at 
least under the tutelage of John Roebling. So he transferred 
the business to his father-in-law, a dear, delightful old 
German, whose little farm at Saxonburg was a cultivated 
wilderness of flowers and fruits and vegetables, and whose 
dogs and cats and birds were the most licensed members of 
his household. He made bird breeding pay, though truth 
to say he cared little whether it paid or not so long as the 
birds sang to him, which they did from morning till night 
in a perfect gurge of melody ! 

One day it occurred to Farmer Roebling that he might 
patch out his income if, between crops and during the win- 
ter months, he could obtain employment as an assistant en- 
gineer in making surveys, building canals and dams for 
slack-water navigation, and such like work that was going 
on in his vicinity. His services were readily accepted, his 
real merits were soon recognized, and it was not long before 



3* 



34 

his knowledge and skill were in actual demand. Hence- 
forth the farm was practically abandoned, so far as John 
Roebling was concerned. 

The very oldest of you may recall that before the de- 
velopment of railroads, transportation by canal was con- 
sidered the culmination of all that was luxurious and rapid in 
locomotion. But a canal could not cross the mountains — 
even Yankee ingenuity could not compel water to run up 
hill. The canal boat, however, was under no such lim- 
itation. It was made to cross mountains without disturbing 
passengers or freight, and by a very simple expedient. 
The boat, you understand, was built in sections and at the 
base of a mountain would be abrupted, loaded on to a port- 
age railroad, section by section, and so hauled up an inclined 
plane with rope and windlass. By like process it was 
lowered to a canal on the opposite side of the mountain, its 
parts once more articulated, like a jointed snake, there 
hitched to an expectant mule (with a "spanker" appropriate 
to the craft) and so went bounding over the billows without 
regard to constables or speed limit. 

Now the ropes used to drag these boats over the moun- 
tains were clumsy affairs, several inches in diameter, made 
of Kentucky hemp. They were costly and short-lived and 
a considerable item of expense. John Roebling opined 
that if a rope could be made of wire flexible enough to be 
wound on a windlass, it ought to cost little more than a 
hempen cable and would possess greater tensile strength 
with one-fourth the diameter. Moreover, it would outlast 
a dozen ropes woven from vegetable fiber. No one in 
America had ever made a wire rope nor even seen one. 
Roebling himself recalled an item in a periodical, sent him 
from Miilhausen, to the effect that some German inventor 
had produced a wire rope, and he concluded that what an 



35 

indigenous German could do in the fatherland a trans- 
planted German ought to do in America. At all events 
the idea was worth a trial. 

So he built a rope walk on his farm at Saxonburg, pur- 
chased a quantity of wire deemed suitable for his purpose, 
instructed his friends and neighbors in the art of rope 
twisting, and actually fabricated a wire rope that surprised 
his most buoyant expectations. It was a remarkable 
achievement and almost made him famous. But he did 
not stop here ; the wire rope led to the wire cable, still to 
be used in connection with canals. It seems that a canal, 
which is really an artifical river, must sometimes cross a 
natural river. That is to say, one river, instead of emptying 
into another, must somehow be made to flow above it. 
Here, of course, the canal becomes a wooden aqueduct, 
but a gigantic aqueduct, capable of floating a flat boat 
loaded to the gun'ales. In those days the building of such 
an aqueduct was a big undertaking and hazardous withal, 
for frequently the ice in the river would gorge and crush 
out the piers and abutments, permitting the canal itself to 
join the procession and float off to sea. John Roebling's 
inventive mind evolved an idea, having its origin in a 
memory. 

While yet a student at the university, one of his vacation 
tramps through northern Bavaria had brought him to the 
town of Bamberg, where he saw for the first time a bridge 
suspended by chains spanning a small stream called the 
Regnitz. He had studied this structure, sketched it, and 
made it the subject of a thesis. Now he recalled his 
youthful essay and bethought him that if a cross-river aque- 
duct were suspended from wire cables, so much stronger 
than chains, it would eliminate piers and posts and other 
obstructions and leave the river to flow at its own sweet 



36 



will. He laid his plans and calculations before the en- 
gineers of a canal company about to cross the Alleghany 
river at Pittsburg, frankly admitting that what he proposed 
to do was without precedent, and in Germany would 
doubtless be frowned upon. But he insisted that his figures 
were correct and spoke for themselves, and that the advan- 
tages to be gained justified some risk. In short, that his 
scheme ought to appeal to the American spirit of shrewd 
adventure and daring enterprise. 

He was ordered to do the work, and set about it 
knowing that the outcome Would either place him in the 
forefront o( American engineers or ruin him forever. The 
undertaking was a success and led to many com- 
missions o\ like kind, several of these suspension aqueducts 
being still in use, unimpaired, and seemingly good lor all 
eternity. 

Now a layman can see that a suspension aqueduct is 
nothing less than a suspension bridge, carrying an enormous 
load. John Roebling recognized the fact and pondered it; 
the whole world knows the results of that cerebration ! 

Before he had completed his first suspension bridge over 
the Monongahela, Mr. Roebling realized that he must have 
shops and machinery and possibly mills for drawing his own 
wiiv, and he further realized that Saxonburg was not a suit- 
able location for such a plant. On the advice of his friend, 
Peter Cooper, whose iron foundries were at I renton, he 
visited this Quaker city, studied its advantages, purchased 
a quantity of ground, and in 1849 removed his family from 
Saxonburg here, the journey requiring seven full days — 
accomplished now in almost as many hours. Mr. Roeb- 
ling was the architect of every building of his new plant, 
and the inventor ami designer of nearly every piece of 
machinery that went into those buildings; for it was not 



17 
until /<-;•• ■ '■■■ yard thai be could In o employ 

How and where John Roebling found lime to do all 

he did to j fc ' onv< - . / 

voluminously to/ ecientifi* journal*; practice the flutt i 
piano; stu'iy / i and pom forth hi* own luu 

mm m thousand* oi ■ >o 

and machinery and mala hi* own drawing} to 

oftta dei :'• ■-• - :" canal* and portagu ■• road* and 
bimi - • •. •,//■•.•• 

all tliis, J •. / v /. •■.. g ■ . ',-. An-! y<-t, each ni'/ht 

win ■■■ detail \i m took till ,• • 

Ji i« relate . • ■ % the civil v ' al Fr< 

i foj hin .■ him waiting m tkt 

wi ■ '■.■■■ toot »c ■ '■■"<■ 

thing -. etfeci ,,., ... ,..,..,... , 

John Roebling ha/ ■- ■•./.. on any nn 

Hi* rute jvai o ■ a conference :....,,... .,,,,,, 
with whom he had an 

g o ■ ■-• that em 

■ - <- ■ : q my think ■ ■• 

rdid it. A man • • . i --• - • .' 

the hurry/ 'J im<: <inv«ti ui all, J euppoa ••/■■•■ 
...... ... allop as tfaougl 

o . - •. p . •. : . .. ... . 

each • ploy hi* I ■■ - - ■ --■ 

j ji to his happ • i ivord ol 

■ ;'• Roebling J --J no 

n really hi »vorki 

„■• • ■ , 



38 

built ; the planning of a bridge at Wheeling, the actual 
erection of a bridge at Cincinnati and even the wonderful 
bridge over Niagara Falls, were only preliminary training for 
the monumental work that was to cost him his life while 
crowning it with glory. 

The Brooklyn Bridge, commonly so called, though still 
often referred to as " The Roebling Bridge," hyphenates 
Long Island and the island of Manhattan, and its con- 
struction made possible the Greater City of New York. 
When Mr. Roebling presented his plans for this amazing 
structure the engineers of the world scoffed at them as au- 
dacious and absurd. If, said they, he should succeed in 
spinning his iron filaments over so vast a stretch, what use- 
ful purpose would be accomplished ? Pouf ! Roebling's 
tangle of wires was a web to catch flies — he was courting 
the fate of Arachne in the fable. It was, in sooth, a work 
of unexampled difficulty — looming, portentious, Titanic. 
He fought his detractors inch by inch for the right to try, 
defending his ideas with such vehemence and courage that 
finally this right was given him. The great work, begun 
by himself after his own designs, was completed by his 
son. It is called to-day, in the candid admiration of man- 
kind, the Eighth Wonder of the World. 

Originally planned for a calculated load with a margin of 
safety, the exigencies of traffic have long since burdened 
this noble structure many times beyond its promise ; and 
yet, within the last few weeks the board of experts ap- 
pointed to examine its condition report that it is safe and 
unhurt and, if possible, has grown stronger with use. 
Luckily for the people of New York, John Roebling's 
promise was always less than his performance. 

But Brooklyn Bridge is more than a crowded high- 
way. It is a thing of art, beautiful in itself. From the bed- 



39 

rock of a mighty river, one hundred feet below its surface, 
bastions of masonry leap towards the clouds and kindle in 
the distance like shafts of light. The tenuous festoon that 
seems to cling to them floats in the air — an incredible gos- 
samer woven in a dream. Yes, Brooklyn Bridge is beauti- 
ful ! All the latent poetry of the mathematician — and in 
its highest reaches mathematics becomes divinest poetry ; 
all the estheticism of the architect ; all the musician's sen- 
sitiveness to harmony ; all the mysticism of an idealist 
philosphy ; whatever of faith, feeling, reverence John 
Roebling cherished in his heart, was here voiced like a 
ringing cry. As if conscious of his pending doom, his 
genius stands embodied in this final form — an aspiration 
visible — a soul's bid for immortality ! 




PHILIP FREUDENMACHER. 

Treasurer. 



HARRY S. MADDOCK, 
President. 




WARGERUM. 




LOUIS FISCHER, 
Secretary. 




JOHN C. SCHWEIZER. 



THAN H. BLACKVVKI.L. 



The Roebling 
Memorial Committee 



Roebling Memorial Committee. 

The erection in the city of Trenton of a monument to 
the memory of John A. Roebling has frequently been 
considered, but until the organization of the Roebling 
Memorial Committee, the proposition never advanced be- 
yond the realm of discussion. 

The credit for arousing the interest of the people of 
Trenton, which resulted in the erection of the monument, 
should be given to the members of the committee, brief 
biographical sketches of whom follow : 

HARRY S. MADDOCK. 

Harry S. Maddock, President of the Committee, was 
born in Brooklyn, N. Y., July 15, 1861. He came to 
Trenton in 1875 where he has since resided. 

Mr. Maddock is connected with the firm of Thomas 
Maddock's Sons Company, one of the largest and most 
important industries of Trenton, and the oldest manufac- 
turers of sanitary earthenware in America. 

He is a member of the Board of Police Commissioners 
of the City of Trenton, to which he was first appointed by 
Mayor Sickel in 1898. He has been re-appointed by suc- 
cessive Mayors and is now serving his third term. 

Mr. Maddock is a high degree Mason, a Knight Temp- 
lar, and a member of the order of Elks. 

LOUIS FISCHER. 

Louis Fischer, Secretary of the Committee, was born 
in Trenton in 1863. He attended the schools of Tren- 



44 

ton, and in 1882 was appointed assistant to City Clerk 
Alexander C. Yard. 

He worked subsequently in New York as a book-keeper, 
returning to Trenton in the eighties, when he entered the 
shoe business in which he has been engaged ever since. 

Mr. Fischer was elected a member of the Common 
Council in 1902 and re-elected in 1904. He is a member 
of the Order of Elks, the Mercer County Wheelmen, and 
a number of other organizations. 

PHILIP FREUDENMACHER. 

Philip Freudenmacher, Treasurer of the Committee, 
was born in Trenton, November 13th, 1856, and has 
always lived in this city. 

He was educated in the Trenton schools, and at the 
age of eighteen engaged in the cigar business. He is presi- 
dent of the Peerless Tobacco Company and consulting 
manager of the Peoples Brewing Company. 

Mr. Freudenmacher was a member of the old volunteer 
fire department, of which he was made chief in 1888. 
He was the first chief of the paid department, and served 
for six years as a member of the Board of Fire Com- 
missioners. 

Mr. Freudenmacher is a member of the Common 
Council from the third ward. He belongs to a number of 
local lodges and societies, and is actively interested in 
matters pertaining to the welfare of his native city. 

JONATHAN H. BLACKWELL. 

Jonathan H. Blackwell was born in Hopewell, N. J., 
on December 20th, 1841. He attended the public schools 
of his native place and supplemented this with a course 



45 



of instruction in the New Jersey Conference Seminary at 
Pennington and the Claverack Collegiate Institute on the 
Hudson. 

At the age of eighteen he began a mercantile career in 
his father's store at Hopewell,where he remained three years. 
He then came to Trenton where he was employed for a 
year when he moved to New York. In 1864 he returned 
to Trenton and formed a partnership with the late Wm. 
Dolton in the grocery business. 

Mr. Blackwell is now the senior member of the firm of 
J. H. Blackwell & Sons, wholesale grocers, and is also 
interested in many important business enterprises. 

In 1873 Mr. Blackwell was elected a member of the 
Common Council of Trenton. The following year he 
was elected to represent Mercer County in the New Jer- 
sey State Senate. In 1878 he was appointed by Governor 
McClellan a commissioner to the Paris Exposition. 

He is a member of the Board of Managers of the Sons 
of the Revolution of New Jersey, a director of Mercer 
Hospital, and is actively interested in civic affairs. 

GENERAL C. EDWARD MURRAY. 

General C. Edward Murray was born in Lambert- 
ville, July 17th, 1863. In 1865 his parents moved to 
Trenton where he has since resided. He was educated 
in the schools of Trenton and in 1883 became associated 
with his father in a rubber manufacturing business of 
which he became later the sole proprietor. In addition to 
this business, he is interested in a number of important 
industries of Trenton. 

General Murray's interest in public matters began in his 
youth and has always been maintained. In 1894 he was 



46 

elected City Clerk, which office he kept until he declined 
re-election in 1904. 

He enlisted in Company A, Seventh Regiment, N. G. 
N. J., in 1885, and rose from the ranks to the position of 
Captain and Paymaster. March 8th, 1905, Governor 
Edward C. Stokes, appointed him Quartermaster-General. 
He was commissioned Brigadier General, April 5th, 1905. 

MAHLON R. MARGERUM. 

Mahlon R. Margerum was born in Trenton, October 
28th, 1856. He was educated in the Trenton schools 
and began his business career with the firm of Hiram 
Rice & Co., grocers. When twenty-one years of age 
he engaged in business for himself as a pork-packer and 
has since widely extended his business interests. 

Mr. Margerum is President of the Peoples Brewing 
Company, Treasurer and General Manager of the Windsor 
Hotel Co., and Treasurer of the Mercer Bottling Co. He 
has long been interested in military affairs and was ap- 
pointed by former Governor Stokes a member of his per- 
sonal staff. Mr. Margerum is Secretary of the Inter-State 
Fair Association, and has through his energy and intelligent 
management of details, contributed largely to the success 
of this institution. 

SAMUEL WALKER. 

Samuel Walker was born in Trenton, October 1, 1860. 
He graduated from the Trenton High School in 1879 and 
afterwards read law in the office of Ex-Congressman James 
Buchanan. Hew as admitted as a member of the New 
Jersey Bar in 1883 and has smce been engaged in the 
practise of law. 



47 

Mr. Walker is one of the directors of the Trenton Trust 
and Safe Deposit Company, Real Estate Title Company, 
Keystone Pottery Company, and Potteries Selling Company. 

He was a member of the Board of Education in 1882- 
1884; Treasurer of the City of Trenton in 1892-1894; 
County Treasurer in 1894-1897 and has also served as a 
member of the Board of Police Commissioners, to which 
position he was appointed by Mayor Frank O. Briggs in 
1899. 

JOHN C. SCHWEIZER. 

John C. Schweizer was born in Zigishausen, Wurttem- 
berg, Germany, March 3d, 1837. After attending school 
in his native country, he worked as an apprentice to 
a machinist until he was sixteen years of age, when he 
came to America. 

In 1862 he returned to Germany, where he resided for 
a year and a half, when he again came to America and 
entered the employ of the Camden and Amboy Railroad 
Company, working in the company's shops at Bordentown, 
New Jersey. 

In 1866 Mr. Schweizer moved to Trenton and settled in 
the borough of Chambersburg, where he engaged in the 
dry goods and grocery business. He was active in this 
business for a period of thirty-five years, building up a large 
and successful mercantile establishment. About five years 
ago he retired from business life. 

Mr. Schweizer was formerly a member of the Common 
Council of Chambersburg and also served as Com- 
missioner of the Sinking Fund. He was a member of the 
Board of Fire Commissioners for two terms, and the Board 
of City Assessors for one term. 



48 

CHRISTIAN GUENTHER. 

Christian Guenther was born in Miilhausen, Thurin- 
gen, Germany, August 22nd, 1834. He learned the 
machinists' trade in his youth, and in 1852 left Miil- 
hausen for America. Mr. Guenther worked at his trade 
in a number of American cities and at the outbreak of the 
civil war was living in the city of New York. 

He enlisted in 1861 in the 46th New York Volunteers, 
and was wounded at the second battle of Bull Run. In 
1863 he was honorably discharged from the Army and 
moved to Trenton, where he accepted a position in the 
employ of John A. Roebling. 

He was a member of the Council of the Borough of 
Chambersburg, before its annexation to Trenton. Mr. 
Guenther is still employed at the Roebling works, where 
he has worked continuously for forty-five years. 

His long connection with the company, his personal ac- 
quaintance with John A. Roebling, and the fact that he and 
Mr. Roebling were born in the same town in Germany, 
gave to Mr. Guenther an added interest in the work of the 
Monument Committee, in which he took an active part. 



Press Comments 



Press Comments. 



True American, Trenton, N. J. 

" The Roebling plant and Trenton have grown together. When 
John A. Roebling came to New Jersey's capital 60 years ago he 
found a town of less than 10,000 population. The mill that he 
started for the manufacture of wire rope was a little, one-story 
affair ; the number of his employes was so small that he could keep 
their accounts in his head. How greatly his work has prospered 
under his guidance and that of his successors, and how it has con- 
tributed to the growth of Trenton was demonstrated yesterday 
when nigh unto 10,000 men, employes of the John A. Roebling's 
Sons Company, paraded the streets of Trenton in honor of the de- 
dication of a statue to the founder of the house. 

Trenton is to-day a city of 100,000 population and the Roeblings 
by furnishing employment to such a vast army have directly con- 
tributed at least 25,000 of the aggregate. When one adds another 
army needed to supply this host with food and clothing, means of 
transportation and communication, and other necessities and the 
luxuries of life, it is no exaggeration to say that John A. Roebling's 
coming to Trenton when he did and the location of his factory 
here, account for half the population of which New Jersey's capital 
boasts. When one adds to this the influence of John A. Roebling 
and his successors and the fruits of their influence, the riddle of the 
Trenton of to-day, a State capital and yet a hive of industry, famed 
more for its commodities than for its politics, is solved. 

Yesterday's demonstration was most noteworthy. Comparatively 
few of the people of Trenton have had an adequate conception of 
the importance of the Roebling plant to the city. They scarcely 
ever gave it a thought, and yet that plant with its more than 8,000 
employes is the foundation on which more than half of the values 
of Trenton's property are laid. 

Yesterday's demonstration was unusual. Never before has Tren- 
ton seen such a parade. Never before has Cadwalader Park, in 
which the Roebling monument was unveiled, seen such a multitude, 
variously estimated at from 30,000 to 50,000. Trenton has had 
military parades and industrial parades galore, but never a parade of 
such an army of employes of a single concern, proud of their con- 
nection therewith, each one a contributor to its fame, each one a 



52 

sharer in the fruits of John A. Roebling' s engenuity, the genius of 
his sons and the marvellous executive ability that have made pos- 
sible the up-building of so splendid an enterprise. 

It was an uncontrovertible argument in favor of the maintenance 
of our industrial system, suffering at the present hour from the 
attacks of those who would overthrow it. But for the freedom ac- 
corded individual initiative in this country and the opportunity 
attached to such freedom, John A. Roebling would never have been 
attracted to these shores. With governmental restraint upon his 
engenuity, he would probably have been content to live and die 
without giving to the world his marvellous suspension bridges. 
There would not be in Trenton a factory supplying the homes of 
8,000 men with greater comforts than the homes of men ever had 
under a system of independent endeavors, or would enjoy under a 
system where the incapacity and dishonesty of government super- 
visors impede progress and blight man's prospects for the future. 



Sunday Advertiser, Trenton, N. J. 

Thirty-nine years have passed since the death of John Augustus 
Roebling, and it is a magnificent tribute to the endurance of his 
achievements and the strength of his hold upon the grateful recol- 
lections of his fellow-citizens that at this late day they join with 
hearty enthusiasm in the dedication of an imposing monument to 
his memory. Next Tuesday will witness the dedicatory ceremonies 
at Cadwalader Park where upon a pleasant knoll a bronze statue of 
the great engineer has been erected. There is no need to pronounce 
a panegyric upon the distinguished dead in this case. His works 
live after him to proclaim his creative genius and to tell of the debt 
which the world owes to his beneficient services. The mighty 
structures which span once impassable rivers and threatening 
chasms, affording safe and easy inter-communication for immense 
populations, are his best monument, his most eloquent eulogium. 
His name will go down in American history as that of the great 
bridge-builder — as the engineer whose unequalled knowledge of the 
nature, capabilities and requirements in the use of wire enabled him 
to revolutionize that important form of construction. 

This information is familiar to the world at large. For ourselves 
the thought which we would lay as a garland upon the statue in 



53 

Cadwalader Park, concerns John A. Roebling's relations with his 
fellow-townsmen here in Trenton throughout his wonderfully suc- 
cessful career. And we cannot present this sentiment in more 
appropriate words than those employed by the late Rev. Dr. John 
Hall, long pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, this city, who 
preached the funeral sermon on that eventful Sunday (July 25, 1869), 
when the remains of John A. Roebling were laid at rest in Mother 
Earth. 

"Here in his home," said Dr. Hall, after previously alluding to 
his works of genius and skill, " in this host of sad and many weep- 
ing faces, we find the memorials of another and a higher character ; 
one that was built up silently with no demonstration of what was 
going on except the good that was done and the example that was 
set. Here are the witnesses of his integrity, liberality and benevo- 
lence. Here are those who were the almoners of his bounty to 
orphans' and widows' institutions, by annual appropriations of an 
amount that of itself secured their efficiency. 

" These bands of workmen — coming not alone but with their 
wives and children — testify that they knew him not only in the 
workshops or by the pay roll but as the friend of their families. 

" Here is the lesson which men of capital and employers of labor 
are summoned by Providence this day to learn, to admire and to 
practice. This scene is a touching rebuke, in corroboration of 
what all true social science teaches to those who look upon the 
laboring classes as only so much machinery from which they may 
obtain as much work with as little cost as possible. This man was 
the friend as well as the employer of his people, and they knew they 
could at any time appeal to him as such." 

It has been the good fortune of John A. Roebling that his indus- 
try and his genius have been transmitted to the succeeding genera- 
tions of his family, that the manufacturing plant which even in his 
own day was very extensive, has grown to mammoth proportions 
and international reputation under the management of his children 
and grandchildren, and that it still maintains with its employes the 
policy of helpfulness and wise consideration which marked its 
pioneer years. 

Trenton then does well to honor John A. Roebling and build up 
in a great resort of the people a lasting monument to the virtues 
that his useful life taught, while at the same time preserving in 



54 

enduring bronze the traits of a benign countenance in which are in- 
delibly engraved high intelligence, deliberate judgment, benevolence 
and upright living. 



Trenton Times, Trenton, N. J. 

John A. Roebling, to whose memory a monument is being dedi- 
cated in Cadwalader Park this afternoon, was the president of the 
first Board of Trade organized in Trenton, and occupied that 
position at the time of his death, on July 22, 1869. The late 
Charles Hewitt, himself an engineer of repute, at a meeting of the 
board following the announcement of Mr. Roebling's death, said : 
" His name is one known wherever a knowledge of science has 
gone, as perhaps the most successful engineer of the age. He was 
gifted with the ability to devise and execute with equal success, and 
hence deserved and received the just praise of the scientific world." 

Thus it will be seen that there was appreciation of his ability by 
his contemporaries, and that the memorial, belated in erection per- 
haps, is richly deserved. "By the poor Mr. Roebling was justly 
beloved," said Mr. Hewitt, who referred to "the tears of widows 
and orphans, whose wants have been supplied by his benefactions," 
while the resolutions of the organization over which he presided 
spoke of him as "always among the first to promote every useful 
enterprise and always ready to aid liberally in all the public and pri- 
vate charities, without ostentation or display." A local account of 
the funeral referred to it as " the greatest popular demonstration of 
respect ever witnessed in this city." 

A new generation has come up since John A. Roebling died thirty- 
nine years ago ; Trenton has grown from a city of less than 25,000 
to one of 100,000 inhabitants ; the modest little wire mill established 
on its suburbs in 1850, has spread until its mills and yards cover 
thirty-five acres of ground, with a village annex of 250 acres and 
about eighteen acres covered with buildings. Seventy buildings, 
with a productive capacity requiring the services of 8,000 employes, 
have taken the place of the little one-story structure familiar to the 
eyes of older Trentonians. 

Surely Trenton should pay tribute to the memory of the immi 
grant engineer and his achievements. Mr. Roebling came to 
America in 1831 with a brother, to engage in farming. Fortunately 
for the world, he abandoned agriculture pursuits after an experience 



55 

of four years, and resumed the practice of his profession as a civil 
engineer. In 1842 he induced the Pennsylvania Canal Board to sub- 
stitute wire rope for hemp on the inclined planes of the Alleghany 
Portage Road connecting the eastern and western divisions of the 
Pennsylvania Canal. 

The success of the experiment led up to the construction of the 
suspension aqueduct over the Alleghany River at Pittsburg ; the 
suspension bridge over the Monongahela River ; four suspension 
aqueducts on the Delaware and Hudson Canal ; the great suspension 
bridge over the Niagara River, that attracted the attention of the 
world ; a bridge over the Kentucky River, and another over the 
Ohio between Cincinnati and Covington, finished in 1867 ; and 
finally to the Brooklyn Bridge. All these still stand as monuments 
of the ability and foresight of " the most successful engineer of the 
age. ' ' 

Other hands took up the work laid down by the pioneer suspen- 
sion bridge builder thirty-nine years ago. They have no doubt 
developed it far beyond the dreams of the father, and the younger 
generation may in time still further extend the great business that in 
itself furnishes employment to the population of a city of consider- 
able size. Trenton has reason to honor the memory of the man 
who did so much for the city. 

The intrinsic value of the bronze statue is not great, but it is 
the first memorial of the kind erected by the municipality. In that 
fact and the words of the inscription lie its worth: "Founder of 
Trenton's greatest industry ; an energetic worker, inventor and man 
of affairs ; devoted to his adopted country, in whose progress he 
had unswerving faith ; a patron of arts and sciences, and benefactor 
to mankind." 



State Gazette, Trenton, N. J. 

To-day a monument, built by citizens to perpetuate the memory 
of John A. Roebling, will be unveiled in Cadwalader Park. The 
event will be a memorable one, because of the fact that practically 
all of the citizens of Trenton will participate in it. The municipal 
offices will be closed at noon, and many of the factories will suspend 
operations long enough to give their employes an opportunity to 
visit the park and witness the ceremonies. 

The monument was built by popular subscription, and will stand 



56 

as a testimonial of the respect that the citizens of Trenton have for 
the man who laid the foundation of one of the largest manufacturing 
plants of its kind in the world, and which has contributed in no 
small degree to the upbuilding of this city and bringing it to the 
front rank of manufacturing towns in the United States. 

It is right and proper that the men, women and children of a 
municipality should honor those who have contributed to their pros- 
perity and happiness as John A. Roebling did. From a small and 
inconsequential establishment, the Roebling plant has grown to pro- 
portions that make it of great financial value to the city of Trenton. 
It employs thousands of men and women, and is the dependency of 
hundreds of homes. 

It required courage and determination to lay the corner stone of 
the great enterprise that now exists in the name of the John A. 
Roebling' s Sons Company, and John A. Roebling possessed them 
both in a large degree. He was a pioneer in the field of industry 
in New Jersey, and his industry and thrift developed not only the 
enterprise in which he engaged but the city in which he lived, 
as well. 



Evening News, Newark, N. J. 

The esteem in which the memory of John A. Roebling is held in 
Trenton was indicated today, when the people of that city dedicated 
with impressive ceremonies a statue of the great engineer, whose 
name has been a household word throughout the country ever since 
his mind conceived and his energy constructed the Brooklyn Bridge. 
Yet it was not alone to the genius, the expert in wire, the mighty 
bridge builder, that this tribute was paid. John A. Roebling was 
more to the people of Trenton than an engineer and a manufacturer. 
He was a citizen of whose achievements his fellow-townsmen were 
proud because of his personal worth, his charitable nature, his wis- 
dom as a counselor, his friendship for his neighbors, and his con- 
stant endeavor to improve the condition of the men employed by 
him. The statue today dedicated in Cadwalader Park is, therefore, 
the local tribute to the man. 

It is nearly thirty-nine years since John A. Roebling died in the 
heighth of his fame. He was buried on July 25, 1869, and many 
were the words of praise for his wonderful accomplishments spoken 
about his bier. But the good that he had done lived after him. 



57 

The great enterprises that he started but left uncompleted were con- 
tinued and carried out with success by his family. The industry 
that he founded in Trenton was expanded, and the principles he had 
so firmly laid down were adhered to strictly. He, though dead, 
has been speaking all these years, and the people of Trenton have 
recognized the fact. They have waited long before honoring Mr. 
Roebling's memory with a statue, but the very length of that time 
indicates the permanence of the esteem in which he has been held in 
the city where he was best known. 

But the dedication of the monument to-day is more than a local 
event in Trenton. From Mr. Roebling's native town in Germany 
comes evidence in the form of a cablegram of the interest there in 
the honor done a son of Muelhausen. New Jersey is also proud of 
being the State in which Mr. Roebling developed his talents and 
from which he gave the world the benefit of his genius. The statue 
in Cadwalader Park is a fitting one, but it is small in comparison 
with the great monuments that will endure for generations in all 
parts of the world with which his name is associated. 



The Sunday Call, Newark, N. J. 

It was not necessary for Trenton to erect a monument to John A. 
Roebling. The man whose life work included the first suspension 
bridge at Niagara Falls and the first East river bridge is not likely 
to be forgotten. Even in Trenton there is a greater monument to 
him than any artist could produce, in the big Roebling works. 
However, Trenton did honor to itself in erecting the memorial, al- 
though it could not increase the engineer's fame. Few who are now 
living remember the completion of the suspension bridge over 
the Niagara gorge fifty years ago. It was one of the wonders of 
the world for a time, and the discussion as to whether it would be 
safe seems amusing now, but passengers on trains crossing it had 
a very lively fear for years after it was used. 



Courier, Plainfield, N. J. 

It is not often that a city feels proud enough of one of her citizens 
to suspend business at the unveiling of a monument to him as was 
done in Trenton Tuesday in honor of the late John A. Roebling. 

5* 



58 

But it is not so often that a city has one so widely interested in the 
great things of life as a great builder, inventor, man of affairs, patron 
of arts and sciences, who came from a foreign land and did so much 
that will live long after him as a benefit to so many people. The 
demonstration to his greatness came late, thirty-nine years after his 
death, but it shows that the great still live and their works speak 
long after they themselves are silenced by the Great Destroyer. 
The tribute to this man, which all Trenton turned out to pay him, 
is something of an example to the youths who are to be the future 
citizens of the country, by way of showing what hard work will do 
for a young man who came up from the lesser walks of life. A til- 
ler of the soil, a stranger in a strange land, far from his home across 
the seas, but he became a great American. It ought to be an 
inspiration to the American boy to be shown what a man with such 
handicap could accomplish, when he had to go so far to do it, and 
meet his rivals on their native soil and so far outstrip so many of his 
colleagues. If the demonstration in Trenton shall have given some 
such inspiration to youth there and elsewhere, its results may be in 
the aggregate greater even than those of the man who was thus 
signally honored. 



Daily Citizen, Brooklyn, N. Y. 

A statue to the late John A. Roebling was unveiled in Trenton, 
New Jersey, yesterday in the presence of ten thousand people. 
Trenton honored this man as her most distinguished citizen, al- 
though his cradle stood in Germany. Roebling founded in Tren- 
ton the great wire and cable works which employ over six thousand 
hands, but his chief claim to fame rests on the reputation which 
came to him as the designer of the Brooklyn Bridge. Forty years 
have elapsed since Roebling planned this bridge, but it still remains 
unsurpassed in symmetry of design, in utility and in beauty. 

Emerson's ideal of beauty, which springs from the useful, no- 
where in the public monuments of this city finds a more apt expres- 
sion than in this wonderful Brooklyn Bridge. 

Roebling did not live to see the execution of his design in stone 
and steel, but his name is forever associated with it. 

A great man, the late William C. Kingsley, gave Roebling the 
opportunity to make his name immortal. Kingsley, who came to 
Brooklyn in his youth and prospered here, wished to do something 



59 

for the city which had treated him so kindly, and his beneficience 
took the form of the Brooklyn Bridge. Kingsley, in common with 
most successful men, had a positive genius for selecting the right 
aids. He interested Stranahan and Murphy in his project, and 
picked out Roebling for his engineer. 

Brooklyn, which owes so much to Roebling and Kingsley, has 
not seen fit to honor them as other cities would have done. The 
bridge plaza, secured at an expense of millions, offered a fitting loca- 
tion for monuments to the man who conceived the idea and the man 
who designed the bridge. Instead it was turned into a railroad 
yard, disfigured by the ugly pillars of the elevated railroad. 

Perhaps now that Trenton has shown the way Brooklyn may still 
repay its lasting debt to the memory of Roebling and Kingsley. 



Daily Eagle, Brooklyn, N. Y. 

Trenton has unveiled a beautiful monument to John A. Roebling, 
whose noblest memorial here spans the East river. In the glory of 
its stone towers the old bridge will remain without a peer so long as 
economy dictates the construction of skeleton steel columns which 
are as strong and as serviceable as they are devoid of dignity and 
grace. 



Electrical World, New York. 

The past 50 years have unquestionably been an "age of wire." 
Electricity has in some respects supplanted cable haulage, but while 
the present civilization lasts it looks as though the general uses of 
wire rope would increase and extend. Meantime electricity 
itself is causing a greater and greater demand for wire and cable and 
is broadly based upon their use. In this field of wire and cable 
manufacture, one or two great personalities have dominated, and at 
the very head stood John A. Roebling, altogether a genius and a 
great engineer. Few men have left a deeper imprint on their day 
and on industry generally than did he ; and it is altogether fit and 
proper that in Trenton, where he called such vast manufacturing 
establishments into existence, employing thousands of people, there 
should have been set up last week a noble and dignified statue to his 
memory. The life work of Roebling was altogether beneficial to 
this country and to humanity, and the man himself was a fine spirit. 
The world would be better for more leaders like him. 



60 

Engineering Record, New York. 

John A. Roebling occupied such a distinguished position as an 
engineer, manufacturer and public spirited citizen that a statue of 
him has been erected in Cadwalader Park, in Trenton. With the 
exception of the statue of General Greene at Gettysburg, the bust 
of Alexander Holley in New York, the statue unveiled at the New 
Jersey capital on Tuesday of this week, Ericson's statue in New 
York, and the statue of General Meade at Gettysburg, it will be 
hard to find any such memorials of American engineers in con- 
spicuous places. A few American engineers have had small cities 
named after them, but as a rule their fame must rest on the connec- 
tion of their names with great works. Consequently the signal 
honor paid to Roebling' s memory by the City of Trenton and men 
eminent in the public affairs of New Jersey is most gratifying. 



Record, Troy, N. Y. 

The erection of a statue by the citizens of Trenton, New Jersey, 
to John A. Roebling, the man who built the Brooklyn bridge, is 
notable because it awards a lasting memorial to one of a class of 
men who are rarely remembered in this way. The builder and the 
mechanical genius have never appealed to the public. It is the poet 
and the statesmen who gain the marble tributes. Perhaps it is just 
as well. The monuments of these men are in their works. Chris- 
topher Wren, the architect and builder, is buried in St. Paul's 
Cathedral, the masterpiece of all the churches he erected. Over the 
inner north doorway is a tablet containing this epitaph : " Si monu- 
mentum requiris, circumspice : " "If you seek for a monument, 
look about you." 



Tribune, Scranton, Pa. 

The unveiling of a statue to the memory of John A. Roebling, 
the builder of the Brooklyn Bridge, at Trenton the other day was a 
deserved tribute to great genius. John A. Roebling was not a war- 
rior or a statesman. Before the completion of the great span that 
first linked Manhattan to Long Island, he was practically unknown. 
Yet this modest wire manufacturer paved the way for undertakings 
undreamt of when the work of laying foundations for the piers of 
the big bridge began. 



61 

At the birth of Roebling's scheme to span the East river, the city 
of Brooklyn seemed like a distant suburb to those who were obliged 
to travel by ferry boats and slow horse cars. The opening of the 
Brooklyn Bridge, even before the advent of trolley and elevated 
cars, made the trip to Brooklyn only a matter of a few minutes, and 
the structure has borne millions of travelers since. 

The sinking of the tubes under the East river has made it possible 
for the business man to get to and from his work more quickly 
than by the bridge. But this great span was the first step in the 
line of progress that has by rapid transit brought many neighboring 
towns within the city of Greater New York. The Brooklyn Bridge 
stands to-day a magnificent monument to the genius and energy of 
one of America's foremost sons of progress. 



Telegram, Bridgeport, Conn. 

The erection of a statue to the memory of John A. Roebling, who 
built the Brooklyn Bridge and laid the foundation of the immense 
wire cable enterprises at Trenton is regarded with satisfaction by 
those who desire to see the forces which are revolutionizing the mod- 
ern world receive their due meed of acknowledgment. It is a pity 
that the figure of the great bridge builder could not have commanded 
some central position upon his supreme achievement instead of being 
placed in the New Jersey city. It is, however, none the less a thing 
for which to be grateful and a sign that the world is growing wiser. 

The decline of art and literature is a disputed commonplace of 
the schools ; but the intellectual rise of the engineer and the crafts- 
man has taken place almost unnoted. The common everyday needs 
of the world are now met upon such a stupendous scale that they 
who grapple with them must possess all the fire, insight and strength 
of imagination which used to be considered the especial dower of 
poets and painters. They must see the thing they wish to do in 
clear vision long before even the plans for it take actual shape, they 
must give their lives to their work and be willing to lose them in its 
service. There must be an element of selfishness in their great am- 
bition ; some sense of the advancement their work or their invention 
will confer upon the race must sustain and uplift them in their fight 
with fortune. Then when the ship or the bridge is planned or the 
machine which is almost human in its fine workings is ready to be 
built or operated they are helpless until they find craftsmen of the 



62 

same high quality as themselves to cany out their ideas. It is the 
glory of the age that such are rarely if ever wanting. The skilled 
mechanic of the present loves and understands his work in the spirit 
which dominated the great wonder workers of the past. He is their 
lineal successor, and like them, he toils none the less faithfully be- 
cause the work he has wrought bears no record of his name. 

The more than six thousand workmen who formed a guard of 
honor at the unveiling of the Roebling statue are the necessary com- 
plement of such men as the famous engineer who so gallantly con- 
quered what was then believed to be impossible. They are slowly 
coming to their kingdom ; but it is surely awaiting them. 



Manufacturer's Record, Baltimore, Md. 

The recent unveiling in Trenton, N. J., of a bronze statue, 
which was erected by popular subscription to the memory of John 
A. Roebling, is of peculiar and noteworthy significance, as it is not 
only indicative of the high honor and esteem in which the memory 
of his worth as a man and citizen is held, but also is a fitting tribute 
to the creative genius of the man who founded one of the most 
important industrial establishments of the city and of the country, 
and who by his wonderful engineering abilities attracted the atten- 
tion of the whole world. This event, however, has a still greater 
significance, in that it centers attention on the freedom of an indus- 
trial system under which the growth of a legitimate enterprise was 
made possible, and it is a strong object-lesson to those who would 
strike at the heart of such a system and throw so many restrictions 
around it that in the future it would become impossible for any in- 
dustrial establishment to enjoy a healthy and proper growth and 
keep pace with the development of the country. 

The history of the company's growth and broad policies finds its 
counterpart in the history of nearly every one of the country's large 
industrial establishments, which have been influential in making 
this nation supreme in such activities. But with all this in mind 
there are those, and they are in great numbers in this country, who 
cannot or will not see the picture of the present growth of our lead- 
ing industries and the broad effect they have had upon national pros- 
perity, but look only on the smaller one showing the original and 
cramped quarters of a new-born enterprise, or, in other words, they 
refuse to acknowledge that the great growth of these large businesses 



63 

have had a wholesome influence upon the country's affairs. There 
are those who will not give credit to the industries which are pro- 
viding employment at good wages, steadily increasing in recent 
years, to millions of the people, for the opportunities they are hold- 
ing out to young men to develop their talents. This narrow- 
minded view becomes dangerous to the country when it is embodied 
in practical agitation. For that menaces the industrial freedom 
which is the foundation of the great development of this country in 
all lines of endeavor. It was this broad freedom that attracted John 
A. Roebling to this country. 



nil nun .:, n 

m 1 1 1 m i I n 1 1 

M i 

Minimi 
minimi mum 




